Position of Stars

Would people on the north pole see a totally different set of stars than people standing on the south pole..? Would the Big Dipper be visible from the South Pole..? Would people living on the equator see even a different set of stars..?

I believe you can only see certain stars from the north pole and certain stars from the south pole. Because up from the north pole is down from the south pole and you can't see through the ground. So you wouldn't see the big dipper from the south pole.

Now think about what is the long-term ramification of the fact that the Earth has a slightly tilted axis relative to its rotation around the sun. Does that change the picture any over the course of a year?

phinds is correct in what he has said. Just to elaborate with an example: I live in Brasil at 10 degrees South latitude. Here the "Big Dipper" is visible low in the North, and the "Southern Cross" is high in the Southern sky. Where is the "Big Dipper" located in your sky? Can you see the "Southern Cross" from where you are?

It seems like many images we see of our galaxy and/or our universe are only renditions by artists, thus only guess's and not what's really there. Am I way off base..?

thats a little bit of an oddball thing to say ;)
do have a specific example ? some images somewhere we can look at and tell you if they are real or not ?

Im in Sydney, Australia, much further south than Bobbywhy, and from here we dont see the big or little dipper at all
The net is full of real photos of our and other galaxies ... go to the Hubble Space Telescope image archive site as an example

I am at 45N. Currently the Big Dipper is low in the North. I never have knowingly seen the Southern Cross. I may have had a opportunity 40yrs ago when I was In Guantanamo Bay at 20N. Then, I was familiar with the circum (N) polar stars from Boy Scouts. When I looked at the stars in Gitmo it was just foreign, I had no idea what I was seeing. It was not knowing that sky that drew me to a book on Naked eye astronomy after I was out of the Navy.

I am at 45N. Currently the Big Dipper is low in the North. I never have knowingly seen the Southern Cross. I may have had a opportunity 40yrs ago when I was In Guantanamo Bay at 20N. Then, I was familiar with the circum (N) polar stars from Boy Scouts. When I looked at the stars in Gitmo it was just foreign, I had no idea what I was seeing. It was not knowing that sky that drew me to a book on Naked eye astronomy after I was out of the Navy.

I have travelled to the nthrn hemisphere a number of times now. One of the more surreal and awesome views of the nthrn sky came from my visit to Hawaii in 1999. A couple of friends took me out to the lava flows on the "Big Island". It was daylight when we walked out there, but we stayed to well after dark and to have the lava flowing right beside us as we sat/stood under a glorious clear night sky was amazing. Hilo's lights were far enough away that they didnt light up the sky.